Episode Three: Farscape  Loose Ends, Pasts Due
by Errationatus2
Summary: THE CONCLUSION of the second 'episode', begun as "Errationatus". Crichton has left Moya, acquired a new ship, and now apparently needs a new crew...


FARSCAPE

LOOSE ENDS - PASTS DUE

PART TWO

* * *

**TRETMEJI-FALOUUT TOR WAS A NEBULA THAT LOOKED LIKE A PAINTER'S NIGHTMARE.**

It was a myriad of colors that twisted upon themselves under the control of some rather distorted gravity. At its heart a dwarf star spun madly, throwing the remnants of its companion far and wide, shredding what was left of the star it once spun around into the riot of colored gas the _Vengeance_ sliced through.

Here and there, scattered throughout the nebula were a few planets, a few, and only a few of those habitable – barely. They were the remnants of the system that had once existed her before their star had collapsed. Only those far enough out survived the cataclysm, and they now harbored, like Serri NeMinnious, the large and varied criminal element of the Uncharted Territories – specifically, _pirates._

He was looking for one in particular, one Reihna Karadandidos, probably one of the more successful pirates in the UT's – and she was no one to treat lightly. An intuitive genius, Reihna had discovered wormholes all on her own – and had made the mistake of selling the idea to a certain Scarran half-breed she'd taken in many, many cycles ago. He'd taken that information and then promptly joined the Peacekeepers – selling her to _them_ in the process. It had taken her two very long cycles to bribe, fight and kill her way out of the notorious "Damnation Centre" – the PK's worst prison, but she did it – and everything she'd done since had been for one purpose – to confound Peacekeeper efforts to acquire wormhole technology in any way she could – and get as rich as possible doing it, of course. If she could kill Scorpius along the way, bonus, but if not, she'd certainly help anyone who would give it the old college try.

She had quite the hate-on for the Scarran half-breed, which was how, indirectly, Crichton had met her in the first place.

They'd had mutual goals.

Crichton had gotten lucky. Reihna was not, unlike Scorpius, driven by the need to control wormholes. She had theorized, discovered their reality and had been satisfied with the knowledge for its own sake. Now, she simply wanted to make sure Scorpius never got his hands on them. That was enough to make he and she allies in their first meeting, and Reihna liked him as much as she liked anyone – which was, when all was said and done, not that exceptional. He had a sneaking suspicion that he was probably the reason she'd been 'evicted' from Serri NeMinnious, and hoped she didn't hold grudges. Granted, where she was now was far superior.

Batoou-Orisen was a system that occupied one of the rare "clear" areas of the nebula, which simply meant that navigation in and out wasn't quite as life-threatening there as elsewhere in the Tor. It was also one of those places you couldn't find unless you already knew where it was. Reihna had gone to considerable trouble making sure of that.

Crichton, however, knew where it was. He was only about an arn out from Batoou-Orisen when the _Vengeance's_ proximity sensors sounded. Five ships, five hundred thousand metras out, approaching fast. A quick scan of them revealed them to be a Peacekeeper-built "Slicers", a class of Prowler that was heavier than the standard, built for two, a pilot and a gunner. They had a longer range, and heavier weaponry. They were basically fighter bombers. Crichton smiled to himself. _Dead, was she? _Only Reihna had this kind of firepower this far out – and she stole nothing that wasn't Peacekeeper. She still retained that charming PK-inspired disdain for anything not Sebacean.

Crichton reached over, primed the _Vengeance's_ weapons, in particular his Nebari Cannon, kept his eye on the scanners. The Slicers started to _slow_, he noticed.

_Gotta love those Nebari,_ he thought fondly, watching them slow further. Reihna had firepower, but she was far from reckless. The ships ahead fanned out, forming into a circle. Crichton just sped up, altered his trajectory slightly, aiming at the lead craft. He peeled by it a few moments later, and they turned, came after him. A few shots came by him – just warning shots.

"_Identify yourself._" Crackled over his comm system. Crichton acquired all six ships in his targeting array, locked them in, but kept going.

"Take me to Reihna Karadandidos." He told them.

"_Identify yourself._"

"Call me Ishmael." He said, suddenly remembering.

"_Slow to half-speed, follow us._" Came after almost a full minute.

The fighters veered in front of him and Crichton followed them. _Ishmael._ He'd told Reihna that story, about Ahab and the white whale, one night to pass the time. She'd found it interesting, he'd remembered. He sometimes wondered if it were analogous to his own life, but who was Ahab, and who was the whale – and Ishmael?

_Only I am left to tell the tale, _he mused, as the Slicers led him out of the dust and into the system of Batoou-Orisen. Batoou-Orisen had only one inhabitable planet, Telimekken, but Reihna would not be found there. Planetside was a place she went only when she had no choice. The ships banked and he followed, turning toward a sparkle of lights in the distance. _That_ was the _Wender's Folly_, a huge floating mishmash of structures and ships fused together to create something that vaguely resembled a giant space station. To Crichton, it looked more like a colossal spider web – and at its centre sat one of the most successful and ruthless pirates in the UT's.

"_Bay one-oh-one, berth four_," came from his comm, and he shifted his track. Yeah, he'd intrigued her. Bay 101 was the exclusive berth of the mistress of this place.

The _Vengeance _eased into the bay, cruised by Reihna's personal transport. She had a thing for Vigilantes as well, only hers was a full-sized _Pantak_ class job, long since chopped and customized. He parked the _Vengeance_ in berth four, what basically looked to be nothing more than a half-finished block of gantries, surrounded by a silver glow. That was the berth's magnetic shield. The entire area was open to space, with only that shield against the vacuum. Reihna preferred it. If an enemy ever got this far and tried to storm the place, all she'd have to do would be to cut the power, and let space do her job for her. He armed himself, bent down to 1812 and told the droid to "do his best" – and locked the ship down into its auto-defensive cycle, stepped out and waited. The place smelled like the largest body shop you could imagine, ozone and chemical smells permeating the place. The hum of the magnetic shield could be felt on the skin, like being stroked lightly by a cat's tongue.

At the far end of the gantry, he could see a shaft with an elevator – one currently descending. It stopped, and a figure stepped from it, in no hurry.

He recognized her – Shivi'na Na'Carahad she was called – "Shiv" (pronounced _Sheev_) for short. She was not all that tall, the top of her head eye-level, with pale, almost white skin, and short, spiky coal-black hair.

She was dressed entirely in skin-tight rust-coloured leather, covered in silver armor, which on closer inspection was shown to be _blades_, made of some funky metal that he almost suspected Shiv generated biologically somehow since she never seemed to run out of blades – the metal had amazed him when he'd first encountered it, and it still did. He had a few 'knives' made of that stuff built into the lining of his longcoats. The metal was also flexible enough that she could _mould it_ into any shape she wanted (_which is why the 'cuirass' fit so well_), to create _any_ style of blade she wanted – from tiny lock-picking flecette-like blades to full-on swords. She was absolutely no one to take lightly – she could move like lightning on amphetamines, and those blades _never_ missed.

Shiv was lithe and lean, perfectly proportioned. She had an elfin face, with sloe, fiery orange eyes – a small tattoo that resembled a cat's claw under the left one, the corner - and full lips, and no one in memory had ever witnessed a smile cross those lips – no one now _living_, that was.

"_To see Shiv smile is to be a microt from death,_" Reihna had told him, and he could believe it.

"It appears," She said to him in her low, quiet voice, like quicksilver flowing over ice. "you yet remain alive."

"Now that depends entirely on your perspective." He told her. She nodded, stopped a few paces away from him.

"So it does." She gave him a slow look-over, stopped at his face. "I see you've acquired some 'character', as Reihna would call it."

"It was past due."

"What do you want?"

"Can't a guy make a social call? Stop by, say hello?" He glanced around the bay, noted a few surveillance devices. Shiv frowned at him. He took the opportunity to say, casually, "You look good, by the way. Very attractive, the new look suits you."

She frowned again, narrowed her eyes at him. She did look good, for she _was_ rather attractive, but it was not something she heard often, and Shiv's psyche was not actually geared for compliments of that nature. They always knocked her slightly off-kilter.

Which was why Crichton did it.

"Put your hands up," she told him and stepped back. He did, and overhead a scanning beam suddenly snapped on, roved over him and snapped off. The scan was rather intrusive, needled. There was a buzz, and Shiv nodded, turned.

"Come along." He stepped up behind her, followed her to the elevator. They were soon underway.

"There's cautious, and then there's paranoid, Shiv." He said. "Reihna's one, but she's never the other."

"There have been… incidences…" Shiv said, not looking at him. "…that suggest infiltration."

Crichton glanced over at her.

"Who?" He was asking who might be under suspicion.

"Unknown."

"Fadarso?" He thought a second, changed his mind. "No, scratch that. He's not smart enough. He'd figure her rock was all there was."

A nod from Shiv. The elevator stopped, and they exited into a large common area, Reihna's crew going about its business, no one paying them any attention. Shiv continued to lead the way, and Crichton was content to just follow her. She walked with the unconscious grace of a professional dancer, a fluid S-glide that drew the eye.

"Raid any more Charrid outposts lately?" He asked, off the cuff. Shiv stopped, looked back at him, suddenly suspicious.

"Why?" Shiv wasn't tense, quite the opposite. That, however, did not denote calm. A relaxed Shiv was more dangerous. So, they _had_ raided a few new Charrids lately.

"Just curious." He shrugged.

"The Captain has her suspicions." Was all she said, turning and continuing on. They proceeded to another elevator, got in, ascended. There was quiet for a while, then Shiv asked,

"How were you injured?"

He pointed to the quills on his breast. "Se'em'aari bounty." He saw her eyes slide over them, up his face.

"_You_ destroyed a Triad?" Heavy skepticism.

"Something like that." He smiled a crooked smile. "I'm not so easy to kill."

The elevator juddered, slowed, stopped.

"Someday _I_ may kill you, Crichton." He cocked his head at her, and did something few dared. He leaned in _close_, said quietly,

"Now _that_ would be an elegant way to go, Shiv. I'll take that as a compliment. Thank you." He pulled back as the door opened, stepped away with a small smile. Behind him, Shiv's fire-eyes narrowed, and her lips twitched. After a moment, she followed him. The area they were in now was smaller, looked more like apartments, and he knew this was where Reihna actually lived. It was sparsely but richly furnished. Reihna wasn't vain or ostentatious, but she did have taste. Hanging on the far wall was her 'flag', a stylized flower – with thorns – a species of which he couldn't even begin to imagine. A tall vase with living specimens sat below it.

"_Frangehia_", she'd told him. "_I love 'em. Beautiful, fragrant – and the flower and leaves are completely and lethally poisonous_." She'd smiled a wide smile. "_Like me_."

"Come in, Crichton," came from deeper in the apartment. "Don't sit down, I don't know where you've been."

The tone was sharp and jovial, but that was not necessarily a good sign. Reihna had attacked a Peacekeeper depot once, and had laughed throughout the entire raid. She didn't leave a single soldier alive. "Jovial" wasn't necessarily friendly, coming from her. Shiv sat, all grace and poise.

Reihna Karadandidos herself came out after a moment, wiping her hands on a cloth. She stopped when she saw him. She was taller than Shiv, about as tall as he, short ashen-blonde hair, large dark eyes, square chin. She wasn't what he'd consider classically pretty, but she wasn't hard on the eye by any measure. She was rather well-muscled, small breasted and strong. He'd seen her knock a man twice her size out-cold with one punch. She was wearing a Peacekeeper uniform, modified, of course. She had belts galore strung all over it, and he counted at least five pistols – five he could _see._

"Raida's Fist, Crichton - you've been busy," she said to him, walking straight up and grabbing his face, turning it this way and that, giving him a close once-over. "I like it. You were too pretty before." She slapped his cheek lightly as she let go of his face.

"I'm too pretty now." He smiled at her, and it was returned.

"Nice ship too. Too good for the likes of you." She gestured to a screen behind her. "Looks like a Breannados custom job."

"Good eye."

"How _is_ the little trixa?" Reihna tossed the towel behind her.

"Expensive." _In more ways than one_, he thought.

"That's the consensus." Reihna chuckled. "What do you want? You know I don't do social calls."

Crichton pulled his longcoat around him, sat down.

"Furlow." He saw Shiv blink at that, and Reihna started, just a little. Her friendly demeanor vanished.

"What makes you think I have Furlow?"

Crichton sighed. The first time he'd been here, she'd intimidated the hell out of him.

That had passed.

"Do we _have_ to do this, Reihna? You went hunting for her at my behest – after she ripped Rekkard Laniramalamma off for a ship or two and _your_ wormhole database – and you caught her after slaughtering a few hundred Charrids – I saw the base you raided, by the way - and then you hid her. From me, probably."

Reihna glared at him, and he could almost see the thoughts tick over in her head - then she laughed.

"From you – from everybody. What do you want her for?"

"Just wanna ask her a few questions." Yeah, like how much of John's data she actually managed to get her hands on, where her prototype of the Displacement Engine she'd stolen was, and to just whom she'd sold it to, things like that – rather _important_ things.

_Nice job, John_, _one more thing you forgot to take care of before you sauntered off, _he thought, irked. _Frelling idiot._

"I won't let you kill her."

The thought had crossed his mind.

"Just want information."

"Not so easy prying information out of that one."

"Depends on the leverage you use."

Reihna looked him over again.

"You have leverage?"

"Let me put it this way: just under a cycle ago, a _Charrid_ was making dips into a wormhole using a device _she_ stole. Now you and I both know that they're just Scarran lapdogs. The last thing those lizards need is a viable means of transport through a wormhole."

Reihna narrowed her eyes at him, sat herself. She frowned a mighty frown.

"That's confirmed? A _Charrid_?"

"I have it on pretty good authority, yeah."

"If Scarrans have this device," Shiv interjected quietly. "Why are they not using it more extensively? They would have attacked the Dens. We have heard nothing."

"Because," Crichton told her, still looking at Reihna. "It doesn't matter if you can safely go through one if you don't know where you're going."

"Then what difference does it make?" Shiv asked.

"They don't _need_ to have that technology." Reihna answered for him. "Certainly not the frelling Scarrans." She was remembering another story Crichton had told her – about a device that crushed a Scarran _Dreadnought._

"I need to know if she sold it lock, stock and barrel to them or just demonstrated it. You know how slippery Furlow can be – she doesn't give a crap who gets it."

"I can't argue with that." Reihna said, nodding. She looked at him for a few moments, seemed to be considering.

"Yeah," she sighed. "I figured it was better to have her where I could watch her – and use her. She'd gotten away after the first time, managed to make it to that Charrid base before we caught up with her again. She won't be going anywhere for awhile." Reihna got up, crossed to her monitor alcove. He followed. She flipped a few switches, a monitor came on. "She's in the repair bay, linked to a runkill switch. She goes fifty motras from this complex and that's the end of her."

He looked, saw a few dozen mechanics crawling over a ship he couldn't identify. Sitting comfortably in a large chair sat the woman herself, cigar in her hand, directing traffic. She looked as he remembered her.

"Thanks." He said, turning and heading to the door. "Now I'll have that little talk."

"Hold on, Crichton." Reihna told him. "That's fifty levels down and twenty over. I'll order her to the Common Area."

"All right." He stepped into the elevator. Shiv stepped in beside him. Reihna pulled on a jacket, joined them. The door closed, and she looked over at him.

"Let's keep things calm, shall we?"

Crichton nodded, but he promised nothing.

* * *

**WHEN THEY ARRIVED, FURLOW HAD YET TO SHOW.**

Crichton greeted a few of Reihna's crew he remembered from his first time, helped himself to a drink. When Furlow at last waddled in, Crichton was struck by how little she seemed to have changed. _His _memories only included her during his initial foray to Dambada, and it looked as if she hadn't changed a single thing since that time. Okay, she had a few new scars, was a bit worn around the edges. He wasn't sure if not being the Crichton _she'd_ remember would be an asset or not. Around her neck was a shiny gold chain, just small enough so that it couldn't be pulled over her head. A single blue light shone on it. Reihna's "runkill switch".

"Hey, you thick thoddos – got a lot of work to do, can't do it if I have to run all over, y'know."

She huffed, plunked herself down in a chair, crossed her arms. Reihna leaned on the table, cocked her head at her.

"Your Charrid friends." Reihna demanded without preamble. "What'd you sell 'em?"

Furlow squinted up at her.

"Cap'n - we went through this when your bunch grabbed me. I didn't have time to sell them _anything._ You know the plokking Charrids - you have to explain door handles to them."

"But not to Scarrans." Crichton told her, coming from behind. Furlow turned, looked surprised, caught herself.

"Well, hey there, Johnny. Got a new look, I see. Makes you look rough, a bit rugged. Got a serious 'don't frell with me' vibe happenin'."

"That's a good tack to take, Furlow. Tell me about Dambada."

"What's to tell? You blew up my garage and cost me my livelihood. Then you blew up my customers."

"_Scarrans_. How many double-crosses did you pull then? How many were you planning to pull on them?"

Furlow smiled a smile she probably thought was sly, but it looked more pained than anything.

"As many as I had to."

"And now Charrids are roaming wormholes with technology you _stole_ – and shouldn't have had."

"Just business, Johnny."

"No, Furlow – madness. _Not_ business. You're the worst kind of merc – you really don't care who and how many you kill as long as you make a few kretmas from it."

She barked a short, harsh laugh.

"So you say to me surrounded by _pirates_."

Crichton's smile was more ironic.

"Even pirates have standards. My Displacement Engine – what did you do with it? Who has it?" He could see Reihna frown at the mention of the Engine.

Furlow just shrugged, turned away from him.

"Nobody has it. It's nowhere."

Crichton stalked around the table. Reihna seemed content to let him handle it, sat herself down at the table, Shiv standing behind her. Others of her crew were noticing and starting to watch.

"Furlow – you demoed it for Charrids, and only the destruction of the Dreadnought stopped you selling it to the Scarrans. You might not have gotten the Engine itself, but I know you scanned it and put the data somewhere."

She blinked at him, looked for a microt like the idea was a new one. Reihna did, too.

"I don't know what you're talking about, Johnny. I didn't have a chance to scan anything."

"Give me a break - you built a _working_ copy of my module from a couple of scans. You had plenty of time. Especially since you managed to build one for the Charrids." He leaned in close, said low, "Where's the data, and where's your copy?"

"You blew it up, John. You left me with nothing. You got your engine back and the Scarrans uploaded all my data – including my scans."

Crichton slammed his hand on the table, startling her.

"Who do you think you're talking to, Furlow? I know that you aren't so stupid as to not have backups."

"You'd just have to ask your other self, Johnny, I've got nothing."

Crichton gestured back at the resident Pirate Queen.

"Now I know Reihna grabbed you on Sullust about six monen ago. That's in Charrid territory. Charrids were your test pilots. Why were you there if you weren't trying to start up again? They had no reason to love or trust you."

"They grab me, she grabs me. Everyone wants me, I'm popular."

Crichton abruptly pulled a pistol, stuck it in Furlow's face. Reihna started, but Shiv put a hand on her shoulder, stopped her.

"I'm getting tired of getting jerked around. I _will_ kill you, Furlow. Now_ tell_ me what I want to know."

Furlow just rolled her eyes, threw her head back.

"Can't tell you what I don't know, Johnny."

Crichton lowered his pistol. He glanced back at Reihna, shrugged, looked back at Furlow.

"Suit yourself," he said, and then shot Furlow in the head.

She squawked, jerked back and fell heavily. There was a rather large uproar that followed, Reihna leaping up and shouting, pirates running. Crichton abruptly had about fifteen weapons shoved in his face, including two pistols in Reihna's own hands. He didn't look away from Furlow lying on the floor. Shiv had not moved, was watching Crichton with a thoughtful look on her face.

"What were you thinking?" Reihna bellowed at him. "I said _talk_ _– not kill_!"

Crichton calmly holstered "Betty", sighed overdramatically, stared pointedly at the dead mechanic on the floor.

_Yeah. _ _Figures._

"Cap'n!" One of the pirates called. "Furlow – she's… not _real_."

"_What?_!" Reihna practically jumped to the corpse. "What in Hexara?"

"Bioloid." Crichton told her. She looked it over. Crichton's shot had blown a neat and large hole through Furlow's forehead – and it wasn't remotely organic tissue that bubbled in the wound.

"You'd _better_ explain this, Crichton." Reihna demanded. "How did you know?"

"I didn't. Not initially." He reminded her of his copy status. "Remember, the Crichton Furlow knows is long gone – and she would _not _have known he'd been copied." Reihna had heard his story of duplication long ago.

"Stupid slip-up for it to have made." Reihna shrugged. The many guns in his face went away.

"Just ask your other self." Shiv said quietly from behind him.

"Exactly. _That_ did know. I don't know how it knew, but it's a safe bet _she_ was copied just before you picked her up."

"Why? That makes no sense." Shiv said. Reihna thought about it.

"Either Furlow did it herself so she could have some freedom of movement, or she cut a deal with somebody – probably anyone chasing her would grab the bioloid – like I did, and she'd stay free and clear. Free and clear to sell what she really shouldn't have."

Crichton sat back down. "Yeah, that's likely."

"But bioloid formation is Scarran technology. How would she acquire it?"

"How do we acquire it?" Reihna asked. Shiv nodded, thought. "The real Furlow could be anywhere." Shiv realized.

"That's my problem. Yours is more immediate, Reihna. 'Furlow' there has probably got both a beacon and locator in her somewhere. You've been compromised – and you've had her working on your ships for who knows how long."

Reihna looked back at him, realization hitting her.

"Frell!" She ran to a comm, hit it. "All hands – I want immediate hands-on scans on all ships the mechanic Furlow was working on or has since her arrival. _Now!_" She jabbed a finger at those present. "All you – do it too! I want diagnostics on the systems here too! _Go_, damn your hides to Hexara!"

The crew scattered, and Reihna looked back down at the bioloid by the table.

"Bastion's Guts! She's been working here for _monens_! She even passed the bioscan!"

"They're pretty good, I hear. You probably never had the real Furlow – and if you did, not for long. I doubt you can trust any of your scanners or diagnostics. She's probably screwed with them to make everything look normal."

"It will take weekens to go over everything manually." Reihna sat down heavily.

Crichton stood. "I probably didn't help anything by blowing it away. If she had a relay, whoever sent it knows it's been discovered."

"And priming for an attack. Frell it – ships are a priority." She grabbed a crewman running by, instructed him to tell everyone to check ships exclusively – and to do it quickly.

"What ships hasn't she worked on?" he asked.

"Mine. I didn't let her anywhere near our Capitals. I think I'd better get them out and scanning then." Reihna hurried off, then stopped. "You gonna help?"

"Nope." He told her, and she knew he was going to say that. "My presence here will just make it worse. You could do me one last favor and just tell people she was wrong about there being two of me. No doubt she told the wrong folks." He was fairly certain of that. She thought a moment, nodded.

"Fine. I'll think of something. Leave. Grab some supplies if you need them."

"Thanks." He started toward the elevator.

"Crichton – " Reihna called as she ran down a corridor. "Don't come back." She blew him a kiss, kept going.

He waved, expecting that, as Reihna had said that to him the last time, entered the elevator. Shiv, he noticed, was already there and waiting. She hit the controls and the elevator descended.

"Gonna kill me now?" He asked, leaning back against the wall, crossing his arms.

"There would be no point in that." Was all she said.

The elevator finally opened at the hanger, and he exited, heading to his ship. Shiv followed.

"_Do_ you need supplies?" She asked him.

He considered, wondered how long it would take him to get back to the regular lanes, and the more or less denser populated areas.

"Probably. Food, spare parts, ammo. I need spare Type III Chakkan Tanks for my ship. Have any of those?"

Shiv nodded. "Go to your ship and prepare it to receive cargo. I will query your AI for a manifest and then send some drones."

Crichton did as bade, powered up the _Vengeance_ and waited. After about a quarter-arn, he saw large box-like drones appear on the gantry, Shiv following behind. She was carrying a dark duffel-like bag. They started loading and Shiv invited herself onboard.

"You will find the provisions ample and appropriate." She told him, glancing around the ship.

"Thanks." Knowing Shiv would be meticulous and thorough.

"You may thank Reihna."

"Already did."

Shiv nodded, sat uninvited in the co-pilot's chair. Crichton looked over at her, but as usual, her face was unreadable.

"Something?" He asked, going over his systems.

"I wish to accompany you." She said quietly.

Now _that_ had been entirely unexpected. If she had offered to frell him right there and then, he couldn't have been more surprised.

"Why?"

She seemed hesitant, but her voice was steady.

"I am done in Reihna's service. It no longer interests me." She paused, and it felt very long. "You interest me." She was looking resolutely out of the forward portal. Crichton almost smiled, knew that would be a mistake.

"I have no idea where I'm going," He told her. She simply nodded. "…and I'm a liability to anyone who travels with me."

"I can defend myself." She frowned. "I will defend you."

"Won't Reihna miss you?"

"Reihna has no claims on me. I am here because I chose to be. I leave because I choose to. What Reihna wants or does not want does not matter."

Oddly enough, Crichton found that he had no real reason for refusing her. Shiv _did_ have a near-supernatural ability with those blades. That was an asset he couldn't overlook.

"This is my ship. _I'm_ in charge, and what _I_ say goes."

"That is acceptable." His console chirped. The bots had finished loading.

"What are your real reasons, Shiv? You know a hundred reasons why you probably shouldn't."

She looked at him finally.

"I have told you my reasons. What do you want, Crichton? A pledge? An oath of fealty? That I will not turn on you for the rather substantial Peacekeeper reward for you at the first available opportunity?"

Crichton smiled a crooked smile at her.

"I like to be able to trust people."

Shiv stood, took the two steps to his chair. He looked up at her. A blade suddenly appeared in her hand, and she used it to draw a precise line across her other hand. He didn't even blink, simply waited. She held him the bleeding hand, her pale blue blood oozing slowly to form a pool in the palm. She laid the blade across her fingers.

"I am Thantados. Here then is my oath: By this blade, by my blood, I will be a true partner in whatever venture you choose." She told him. "My actions will speak for me. _That_ is my word, and my bond."

He decided. _What the hell. _He could do a helluva lot worse. He nodded, reached over, and she did not flinch away from him. He took the knife from her hand, dipped his index finger in the blood on her palm, sucked it from his finger. Her eyes widened in surprise, for that was the proper form response to her offer. He offered no explanation as to how he knew, just silently thanked Abbanerex for their extensive libraries. The blade he admired for a moment.

"I'll just keep this," He said. "A reminder."

Shiv simply nodded, satisfied. She wiped her hand on a cloth she'd pulled from her duffel. She healed rather quickly, he noted.

"You need to get any stuff? Possessions?"

"No." She indicated at the bag beside her chair. "All I possess I already have."

1812 squeaked from under Crichton's chair. She glanced down at it, looked up with a question in her eyes.

"My DRD. Eighteen-twelve, this is Shivi'na. She's now crew. You can trust her." He looked over at Shiv, then back to his console, started easing the _Vengeance_ out.

Once free and clear, Crichton did his own scan, as deep as the _Vengeance's_ sensors would go. So far… no one. But that could change. He wondered briefly what Reihna would say or do when she discovered Shiv gone, decided that he didn't care. He'd done her a favor and in a way, she'd done him one. He glanced over at the enigmatic young woman next to him who was studying the console in front of her, shook his head internally.

_Well, hell. What can I say? It'll be interesting._

He kicked the _Vengeance_ up to full power, and was soon out of the system of Batoou-Orisen.

* * *

After awhile, he asked casually, even though he'd been thinking it about it for some time,

"You and I are probably gonna be a helluva team, Shiv, but I should probably look into hiring a few more hands."

"You do not want anyone common," Shiv said, looking thoughtful, as if she'd been thinking about it herself. "What is your pay scale?"

"I'll pay living expenses and a ten percent stake in whatever I manage to acquire. Depending on performance." Shiv cocked her head at him. That was certainly more generous than Reihna.

"Acceptable."

"I don't, however, know too many folks out here that I would consider reliable." He pointed the _Vengeance_ back at the more or less civilized sectors of the UT's. "Any ideas?"

Shiv thought about it for a few moments.

"I may know of a few. You might find them rather… unusual."

"You'll vouch for them?" He asked. She thought another moment, slowly nodded. Yes, she believed she could. Depending on certain factors, she added.

"Such as?"

"Whether or not they are still alive." She told him, with the closest thing to a smile he had ever seen from her.

"That would be a deciding factor, yeah." He gestured out the forward portal. "Location?"

She leaned over, punched in a few coordinates. Crichton looked them over.

"Ushen Nevaar?" He ran a quick check through the Navicomp, asked her just what precisely what it was, then gave her a rather skeptical look when she told him.

"You're _kidding_, right?"

"I do not kid."

Crichton just shook his head, turned the _Vengeance_ onto the heading.

"This Galaxy just gets weirder and weirder." He said to no one in particular. "Wake me when we get there."

* * *

**HE HADN'T DONE IT FOR A WHILE, BUT HE KNEW HE WAS DREAMING.**

He found himself standing on a cliff, overlooking a vast expanse of valley before him. Down in that valley the land was arid, with black, twisted trees, smokes adrift across the landscape. It looked like the aftermath of a battle. He turned around and behind him stood a wall that stretched into the sky for as high as he could see, and in both directions to either horizon.

Directly behind him was an immense wall. Standing close, he could smell the air coming from that side, swirling past him. It smelled of vanilla and spices, a scent he knew well, and it was clean and sweet and warm. On this side the cold air was filled with the acrid sting of smoke, dust, decay, the smell of death. The wall seemed suffused with light, but down in the valley, a great wall of darkness awaited on the horizon, cut by silver light. He looked down either side, saw no way over or through the wall. Harvey appeared beside him, looked over the gorge.

"Harve." He said, surprising the doppelganger with the casualness of the address.

"John." Harvey walked to the edge of the cliff, looked down. "What an interesting position you're in."

"Dreams." He shrugged. "Where have you been, anyway? The last time I saw you, you bitched about me supposedly drinking too much and then vanished."

"I thought it best to leave you be this last while. I took a vacation."

"A vacation? Where did you go?"

"Nowhere." Harvey smiled. Where was there to go?

Crichton gazed out over the valley, saw that the wall of darkness was closer, slowly creeping over the land below, the shadows it cast like living things.

"Nice to see you anyway." Crichton told him, finding that he meant it. Surprisingly, he _had_ actually missed Harvey.

"Thank you, John. Still worried about my loyalties?"

"Should I be?"

"Not at all. My… disassociation with the persona of Scorpius seems to proceeding apace. You have imposed an identity on me, and I admit I find that identity intriguing. It's a pity it is something Scorpius himself will never experience."

"I'd save my pity for that sumbitch if I were you."

Harvey nodded.

"Scorpius, like you, is a product of his fate, John. The life he has is not, I think were circumstances surrounding his birth and upbringing different, one he might have chosen."

Crichton snorted, not believing a word of it.

"You think he'd be all sweet and nice if he'd just had the opportunity and someone had been there to hold his hand? People say _I'm_ too much of an optimist."

"Don't forget, John, that while I am not Scorpius, in many ways I _am_. I am a reproduction of his thoughts and consciousness. I _have_ been given the opportunity, and you can see the result. If you understood Scorpius' origins, your opinion of him might change." Crichton just shook his head at that, finding it hard to accept that Scorpius had any side to him that wasn't devious, duplicitous or treacherous.

"Scorpius does not hate _you_, John. Were I to speculate, I think you would discover that he has, in fact, respect for you. You may represent something he could have been – or perhaps you had a life he himself once dreamed of possessing."

"Stop it. You're breaking my heart." Derisive. Harve just nodded again, looked back at the wall.

"Aren't you even curious as to what exactly is behind this wall?"

"I know what's behind that wall, Harve. It's the life of John Crichton, his hopes, dreams and all the things he wants for and from his life. It's Aeryn and home and safety."

He paused, sighed, but Harvey couldn't tell if were melancholic or simply an expulsion of breath.

"That life belongs to John. Not to me. None of those things were ever mine." He smiled down into the valley below. "_That's_ mine."

Harvey put a sympathetic hand on Crichton's shoulder.

"But… you _are_ John Crichton."

"I don't feel it any longer, Harve." He said quietly, and Harvey found that intensely disquieting. "I can't. I've been trying to, but I can't. I don't know what I am. The _Kha'jav_. It may be more apt than anyone knows."

He looked at Harvey squarely.

"It doesn't frelling matter."

Harvey pursed his lips, nodded shortly.

"As you say. Your current situation…"

"Suits me."

"Your plans?"

"Like I said – tie up loose ends."

"And after?"

Crichton shrugged, stuck his hands in his pockets, started walking down the wall. The cliff sloped down that way, leading into the valley.

"Dunno. Maybe I'll find a nice stable wormhole and see where it goes." He shrugged again. "It's a big universe."

They walked until they reached the valley floor, and Crichton took a look back the way they had come. The cliff was very high, even though it had not felt like they had walked for all that long. He looked into the valley, saw that the Dark was closer, tendrils of shadows only a few motras away.

"I need a favor, Harve."

"Certainly."

"I need you to find me a wormhole – or, at least, the memory of one."

Crichton looked down, felt a feather-light touch on his boot. A shadow tendril had slowly reached out, brushed across his foot.

"A specific one?" Crichton was watching the tendril, Harvey thought, with fascination, and surprisingly, what seemed like… _affection_.

"Yeah." Crichton put his back to the shadow wall. "Specifically, the one Crichton came through originally. I have a rough idea of the area in space it is, but I can't be sure. I need to know _exactly_ where it is."

The shadow tendril had looped itself around Crichton's legs. He seemed unconcerned.

"Are you going to use it? Go to Earth?"

Crichton shook his head, pulling his hands from his pockets.

"What for? I just want to know where it is." The shadows were thicker on him now, up to his waist, slowly coiling around him. "Just in case, you understand."

Harvey nodded.

"I shall do my best. I will need rather extensive access to those memories."

Crichton nodded, turned around and abruptly walked into the shadow. His voice echoed back.

"Whatever. Just find it."

Harvey watched the shadow wall for a moment, watched the tendrils swirl around him, rear up as if they would hiss at him. He retreated back up the slope to the top of the cliff as the darkness climbed the cliff-face, seemed to fill the whole valley like an inky sea.

He looked back at the wall behind him, shook his head, quite disquieted by this dream.

* * *

**SHIV COMMED HIM AWAKE, AND HE GROGGILY MADE HIS WAY TO THE COCKPIT.**

"Sensors found this," she told him when he'd arrived. The _Vengeance_ was stopped, holding position. Out the forward portal, he could see a huge ship hanging dark in the distance. For a moment he thought it a Command Carrier. It was sending out a distress signal.

He ran a close-up visual scan on the vessel, felt relieved - and oddly disappointed – that it wasn't a Carrier after all - came across what looked like a name.

"Can you read that?" He asked her.

"_Terrim Nidian_." She answered. "It _is_ a Sebacean vessel." He nodded, for the computer had already tagged it.

"Colonial transport. Minimal weapons. The ship's got power, just not a lot of it. Peacekeeper Transnet News archives reported it launched with a full complement only a monen ago." He frowned.

Crichton slowly brought the _Vengeance_ closer. The colonial had nothing that could harm his ship.

"No life signs," Shiv told him.

"There should be almost thirty thousand people on that ship." He muttered, frowning again. The _Vengeance_ slowly circled. As they reached the Hammonside, the reason for the ship's immobility became clear. A great gash slashed the side of the mammoth vessel, exposing many sections to space. Hanging like a cloud around the hole floated debris from inside the ship: clothing, storage cases, various articles he couldn't name, the detritus one expected from such a ship. The _Vengeance's_ deflectors nudged anything aside that floated too close.

No bodies, however.

"This is damned peculiar," Crichton growled, watching something slide aside that could have been either a toy or a once-living pet. It was hard to tell, and he didn't feel like contemplating it. "What could have torn a hole in that thing that large?"

Shiv studied the gash.

"It was not internal." She said after a moment or two. "It looks …like a scimitar attack." She frowned herself.

Crichton dug around in his head. A "scimitar attack". A cutting weapon that sliced hulls like a hot knife through butter. It was unnecessarily brutal.

That meant only one species.

_Scarrans._

_Frell. They wouldn't have stood a chance. _He knew what Scarrans did to Sebacean civilians.

"Unfortunate." Shiv said into the silence of the command deck. "They will have stripped it bare." Crichton blinked, looked over at her. Naturally, Shiv cared only for the advantage the derelict gave or didn't give them. Ever practical, that one. Whatever she may have felt about the fate of the colonists, she was far too pragmatic to allow it to trouble her. There was nothing to be done but witness and remember.

As the _Vengeance_ came around to the Treblinside rear of the shift, the computer reported a signal – a very faint one – coming from inside the ship.

"Frell – a locater beacon."

"It is very likely a trap." Shiv told him.

"And it could be a survivor," Crichton countered, moving the ship toward an access hatch.

"No." Shiv said, momentarily irritating him. "It is a Scarran trick designed to lure search parties aboard. A typical colonist ship has an Overseer AI. It would not send out a distress call for an empty ship – or even one survivor."

"You're sure about that?" he asked to her nod in the affirmative.

"Of course, or I would not have spoken. The ship is attacked, stripped and filled with Hokmok explosive compound. Any attacked colonial brings a Carrier. A search party boards, finds the signal – which is buried deep in the ship for obvious reasons - cuts it off – and this is the detonation trigger. Hokmok will easily destroy both ships – and anything for fifty metras. It is inert and will not appear on any cursory scans."

"All this to get a Carrier?" He sounded skeptical. "They've got _Dreadnoughts_." With the implication that something this involved was a waste of time. Shiv shook her head again.

"Official Scarran policy for Sebaceans is _extermination_, Crichton. A Dreadnought means an _official_ attack, which means war. It is doubtful the Scarrans wish a full war – at least yet. That does not stop them from these attacks, however. They leave few Sebaceans alive in any skirmish, let alone a full battle." She looked out at the ship. "Any dead Sebacean is a victory, so one of their trite sayings go."

"'The only good Sebacean is a dead Sebacean'." He shook his head. "Nice."

"There is nothing here for us." Shiv replied. "We should depart before a Carrier arrives. One _will_ come." Crichton looked at her for a long moment.

"Fine." He turned the _Vengeance_ away from the _Terrim Nidian, _and accelerated away. At a hundred metras, he brought the ship to a halt.

"You'd better be right," he told her, and suddenly reached forward and launched a missile from the _Vengeance's _belly. It streaked away, back on a direct course for the colonial. A hundred fifty microts later it hit the huge ship – and Crichton was about to curse when a small sun suddenly bloomed where his missile had gone.

Shiv said nothing, simply looked at him.

"Damn it all to hell." Crichton muttered, and resumed course.

* * *

**INTERLUDE**

**IN ITS HEYDAY, IT WAS AN IMPRESSIVE BASE.** Now, it was simply a decaying reminder of a war long since won and history, and the desert was slowly and surely reclaiming the area. The base, it would appear, had been long abandoned. There was no security and anyone wandering across it could traverse its grounds with impunity, move through the holey and tumbling structures, poke at the ancient machinery and corroded equipment laughingly obsolete and left behind.

On the cracked and decaying tarmac, standing like a lone sentinel, waiting for planes that would never come, sat a small fire shed.

It was about the size of a old-fashioned outhouse, wrapped in rusting sheet metal, it's metal door lazily moving in whatever breeze blew. Once, it housed the pumps that channeled water to hoses in case of a fire. Anyone opening the door now would have found an empty space with nothing in it but dust, rusted plumbing, an empty light socket and whatever the wind had blown in.

Had they been far more inquisitive, and if by some chance they'd closed the door, latched it and tugged gently but firmly on that old hanging light socket three times, the concrete block below their feet would have slid aside, and a dimly-lit flight of stairs would have led down to a small modern room that was nothing more than a cylinder of gleaming metal and an elevator door.

That door, had they the proper clearance, would have led them into a colossal space far below. Without the clearance… people vanished every day.

In it were many things that media outlets across the planet would have killed to see and document.

World-changing things.

In one corner of the massive structure - an interior space that could easily have held the entire airfleet of half-a-dozen aircraft carriers – an odd blue light, that seemed to defy the eye to look directly at it, flickered steadily. Ranged around it on platforms hanging with computers and sensors, men and women in white suits with thick goggles watched the light intently. After a few more moments, a voice shouted for it to be terminated. Almost immediately, notes were taken.

"That looked good!" The technician who had signaled the termination exclaimed. Further down the platform, the only man in black frowned, shook his head and pulled the goggles off his eyes.

"That's the most consistent and longest sustained reaction. It's not enough."

"John," a woman at his elbow checked her records and told him. "It's a start, isn't it? By all indications we're on the right track."

John Crichton frowned deeper and smacked a hand on the railing.

"What are we _missing_? I was sure the catalyst had to be something radioactive."

"We've got the heavier radioactive elements. They're all there are, unless you want us to try and discover new elements, too."

John Crichton gave his chief of operations, Sarah Marchand, a sour look. "Put it on the list." He sighed. "I was sure we had it."

"Director, I think it's less a matter of that and might be more of a material problem," another tech spoke up. Crichton tilted his head at him.

"How do you mean?"

"I've been going over the data, and every time we get to a certain power level – around 82% - the relays and charge-flipping actuators start degrading. It appears to be some kind of exotic EM spillage. It may simply be that the alloys we're using in their construction can't stand the output – creating some kind of side-reaction." Crichton thought, slowly nodded, looked back at the woman following him.

"Did the materials boys have any more luck in figuring out the composition of the alloys the Peacekeepers used?"

"That's one of the problems." She told him. "They're alloys we _can_ make…"

"I'm sensing a 'but', Sarah."

"It has something to do with what Sam calls 'molecular alignments'. It's not so much the alloys but the actual _process_ used to create them. Their atomic structures have to be precise."

John eased out yet another frustrated sigh. He was getting tired of this.

"Which we can't duplicate?"

"Well, not yet. Sam says his team isn't that far from cracking it though."

"Every problem we solve creates thirty others." He shook his head. "We have to create entirely new technologies just to get past things as simple as matter injection rates."

"We're doing marvelous things, John," Sarah told him with a smile. "The whole planet will benefit. We've already invented or are on the track of things that will revolutionize the entire planet."

"Will it? I'll believe it when I see it." John sighed a rumbling sigh and looked down at the huge contraption below him, his first attempt at a Hetch-drive. There was just no way to sustain the internal reactions in the engine to make it a viable power generation source for space travel, even though it _did_ generate _huge_ amounts of energy in the brief periods it actually fired. They could only sustain a cohesive packet of energy for maybe ten whole seconds. That, at least, was consistent. Ten seconds every time. The engine would reach the ten second mark, and then flare out. If they left the power on, it would cycle down and then back up, fire for ten seconds and then shut down. He couldn't leave it on longer than that, because his techs reported feelings of illness and vertigo at the third firing, and a feeling of weightlessness. High up on the 'racks' as he called them, a misstep could get someone killed.

"You've done remarkably," Sarah told him, thinking he was becoming despondent. "Humanity's first FTL drive is no small feat." She rested a hand on his shoulder. "Even at this stage, it's an amazing achievement. Technological spin-offs alone will keep us busy for decades. This has been an unbelievable boon."

Crichton just shrugged, looked at her. Something suddenly clicked inside his head.

"What did you just say? Humanity's _what_?"

Sarah blinked. "First FTL drive?"

Crichton looked down at the backs of his hands, looked back up.

"Is it?" Sarah could see his mind start tumbling over. "Faster than light… but I'm _here_ and it's the right era…"

"Not following you , John."

"Most ships out there," and by 'out there' he meant of course on the other side of the wormhole, "travelled enormous distances in short periods of time. That was taken for granted. Even I did it once I replaced the engines of _Farscape. But I didn't lose time, Sarah._"

She blinked again.

"No time dilation effects. No Doppler restraints. How could I be so _blind?_" Crichton ran down the rack to the main computer, skidded into a seat, called up a visualization program, grabbed a stylus and began sketching furiously. Numbers and graphs he drew were translated into something a bit neater and more coherent as he drew.

"These exchange rates are consistent, right?" She nodded. "I've been looking at this the wrong way," He told her to his own mounting excitement. "I've been working on the assumption that _this_ is the _propulsion_ part of a Hetch-drive. It's _not_."

"I'm still not following you," she told him. He needed DK here, he decided. Deek could follow his trains of thought – no mean feat in itself. _Put that on the next requisition order_, he thought with a small smile. _One DK to go._

"Try this on for size," Other techs were drifting over as he worked. "We've been looking at this as if that energy we've been creating is supposed to be in a steady state – that's what we've been trying for – but it's not working. I think it's not working because it doesn't _need_ to work that way. I was thinking we were building the _power generator_ for the propulsion unit – the engine – but _this is _the engine." He jabbed the stylus at the screen for emphasis.

Sarah looked at him with widening eyes, starting to understand.

"That's why we can't break the ten-second barrier? It's_ not_ a barrier?"

"No! That ten seconds of energy is in the what – multi-gigawatt range? That _should_ be plenty – more than enough. At thirty seconds, people feel strange around it. Hugh even said once that it felt like he was weightless." Behind him Hugh nodded. "What if you were, but not in the way you thought? What if it wasn't _weight_less, but _mass_-less?" He laughed at the looks on their faces, most of which said they thought he'd gone loopy.

"I always thought that Hetches were a measurement of _speed, _ like 'warp 1, warp 2', crap like that, but I was wrong. It's a measurement of _time._" He laughed. "On Moya, no one _ever_ said how _far_ something away was, just how _long it'd take to get there_. I can't believe I forgot the experience, but every time I kicked in _Farscape's _Hetch-drive was two seconds of feeling like I weighed a million pounds."

"And? So?" Sarah demanded.

"_Gravity_." Crichton told her with a delighted laugh. "I bet if we check the exhaust readings we'll see some rather odd electromagnetic field numbers." Which he promptly did and then laughingly pointed them out to his techs.

"Well, _lookee here_." On the screen a graph displayed a significant warp in localized EM fields behind the engine when it was fired.

"_A Hetch-drive is a gravity drive_." John intoned it with all the import of Moses coming down from the mountain. He leapt up, started back toward the engine, with his gaggle of techs behind him. Murmurs began as they started grasping where he was going.

"A gravity drive doesn't incur any relativistic penalties – it's _beautiful_! The ship can travel faster than light _without_ ever breaking the so-called light barrier! The engine does nothing but create zero-point energy and wrap the ship in it – making its mass _zero_, or very nearly. Then it generates a pocket of gravity that the ship just surfs on. No mass, very few speed restrictions. It then becomes nothing more than of a matter of transit time! It was staring me in the face the whole time! The laws of physics didn't change just because I went down the rabbit hole. I wondered how it worked, why travelling at those speeds didn't make coming back to Earth impossible. My being here is proof that I was wrong."

He stood, took in the techs and the equipment and smiled the biggest smile he'd ever smiled. They returned it, excited by his enthusiasm.

"I know how to do it now."

* * *

**He had no idea how long he'd been asleep**. It had been very long. To someone who rode full on in the hearts of wormholes, who knew them as a lover knew his love, who saw them not as masses of energy, but solid pathways; time meant little.

In his tomb/prison/den, on the cinder that orbited the blue jewel, he sensed the awakening he'd been preparing for his entire existence and he stirred. His makers had long since vanished from this space, but they'd left him behind because through time's twists and turns they had glimpsed disaster, endings on an unimaginable scale. He was left behind to make certain that did not happen, had been granted certain powers crafted by their genius to make certain it would never be so.

He stretched his senses up and out and smelled the scent of the technology that could lead to interstellar calamity. Yet, he had been asleep for a very long time, and he could not simply bolt awake. Full awareness would too take time.

He would wait.

He would watch.

When the time was correct, he would act.

**INTERLUDE ENDS**

**

* * *

**

**CRICHTON LOOKED UP AT THE HUGE GLEAMING WHITE BUILDING WITH EVEN MORE SKEPTICISM.**

"You're _sure_ you're not kidding me?" He asked the slim woman standing next to him.

"I am completely serious, I assure you." She started up the stairs, stopped when she saw he was not following. "Those I seek are here." She paused. "Or at least, they were, at last report."

He looked around again at the well-sculpted, well-appointed grounds, at the blue-coated attendants on those grounds, the walls surrounding this place. They had been invited cordially in, told to move freely. On the way here, Shiv had told him that the people she had in mind were sometime-pirates, relatively trustworthy, and had a serious hatred of Peacekeepers. Until he had actually walked up the place, he'd been willing to take her at her word. Until he found out what Ushen Nevaar actually _was_.

Ushen Nevaar… was a mental health hospital.

"You've brought me to a sanitarium." He said again. "A very open, very liberal one, but an sanitarium nonetheless."

"If you wished to disappear, where would _you_ go?" She asked him, starting up the stairs again. "Who would think to look for you here?"

He couldn't argue with that, so he didn't. He figured he had little to lose, so he followed her in. It was a very cosmopolitan hospital, with species of all kinds in its rooms and corridors. The care seemed first-rate, everything spotless and ordered. Shiv led the way. Crichton saw a few species he recognized, Sebaceans, a Luxan or two, even a small group of Charrids huddled in a corner, some he didn't, like a large sepia-toned, pulsating gelatinous mass in one corner and some he wasn't sure were even sentient, but were moving nonetheless.

Shiv led him into a common room, a wide-open space occupied by tables and chairs and comfortable furniture, the room lit by large open windows. The star of this planet was an older type yellow star, edging into its late middle age, the light of the midday faintly orange. She stopped in the doorway, started scanning the room.

"There they are." She said after a few moments, pointing to a far corner. She headed in that direction and Crichton again followed, keeping a wary eye on those at the tables he passed. Shiv stopped at the table where two beings argued, a game of Numba Tri-chess between them.

One was a Sebacean male, tall, strongly-built, with light hair, a 'soul patch' style beard, square attractive features, a 'V'-shaped scar between his eyebrows. He looked to be in his early thirties, but it was hard to tell with a Sebacean. The other, to his surprise as they had approached, was a _Scarran_. A Scarran _female. _Unlike the Scarrans he had seen so far, this one had a flatter face, with surprisingly delicate features. She had three long tattooed slashes through her right eye, bisected by another that ended in a hook underneath. She looked like a Sebacean woman with a Scarran skeleton. _Ruling Caste. _Crichton said to himself._ She's gotta be Ruling Caste. What the hell is she doing here?_

"Chak'sa Bavmorda." Shiv said, after a few moments of listening to the argument. It had been about a piece supposedly misplaced on the board. The Scarran looked up, eyes widening in what Crichton supposed was surprise. The Sebacean male looked up as well, a large smile splitting his face when he saw her.

"Shivi'na! What in Hezmana are you doing here?"

"Looking for you. Both of you."

"Well, here we are. All comfortable and well-cared for. It's like a frelling Hezbal'han spa. What do you want?"

Crichton noticed the male surreptitiously moving a piece when the Scarran was looking at Shiv.

"I am here with a job offer." Shiv told him.

"Oh, we don't do that sort of thing any longer. Do we, Cha?"

Crichton got a decent look at her. She was surprisingly attractive – for a Scarran. She sounded - distantly, he thought amused - like Lauren Bacall, but had a melodious edge.

"Speak and you speak for yourself only. Perhaps you find this to your liking, but I grow weary of it." She looked up at Shiv again. "What is this job offer?"

"Not working for Reihna again," the Sebacean mumbled, staring at the chessboard. "No way in several hells."

"Not Reihna." Shiv told him. "Independent contractor."

"Who?"

Shiv indicated Crichton standing behind her. The Sebacean's eyes widened, but the Scarran drew a blank. She also moved her piece back to its original spot.

"I think _you _belong here." He told her. "You're the crazy one. He's pure poison."

"You would be generously compensated."

The Sebacean blinked.

"How generously?"

"Enough." He nodded.

"For what?"

"Crew."

The Sebacean grimaced.

"To do what?"

Shiv shrugged, slightly.

"What would you care?"

The Scarran female nodded.

"I am interested."

Before Shiv could say anything further, the Sebacean opened his mouth.

"No, you _don't_, Cha. You know who _that_ is? He doesn't look the same as when I saw him last, but I_ know_ who that is. That's _John Crichton!_"

"You sure about that?" Crichton asked him, making the guy pause. "You _know_, huh?"

"A Gammak base in the middle of nowhere – one on a spire in the middle of an oil sea – which you _detonated_. Sound familiar?"

Crichton said wryly, "_I _did all that?"

"You're a collar around the neck of anyone who travels with you. Sign on simply to commit suicide? _Pass_."

"What's your name?" Crichton asked him. The guy started, then grinned. It had a touch of irony about it.

"Don't have one. Well, I did, but I don't anymore."

"He is special." Chak'sa said, with a faint derisive air.

"Had my brain frelled with. By a lovely little device on that selfsame Gammak base that digs into your brain. It's called a…"

"I know what it is." Crichton told him. He remembered all too well. "and you remember this face after all that?"

"Not _that_ face, no… " the guy relented. "But missing an eye and a couple of scars… that's nothing."

"And the voice and all the rest? You recognize that?"

"Well, I've never heard you speak before…"

"But you're _convinced_, huh?" The Scarran looked at her friend dubiously.

The guy looked at him harder, seemed to begin to doubt. Crichton changed the subject.

"Why would Scorpius put _you_ in the Aurora Chair?" The Sebacean blinked again, then smiled, sat back.

He chuckled, but it didn't have much humor in it. "I'm what you'd call a freak. Born in the Crèche genebeds – that's where they frell with DNA and see what pops up – and I was one of the ones that survived. Don't need translator microbes. I can't use them anyway. I have the ability to subconsciously, as the med-techs have told me, 'near-instantaneously assimilate, cognate and translate' virtually any language I hear or read. That includes machine code and programming languages." He narrowed his eyes at Crichton. "Scorpius thought it'd be a handy talent to attempt to duplicate in Disruptors and 'other organs of espionage'."

Crichton thought about it for a moment, figured that was the reason this man was _told_, but not, however, why Scorpius actually wanted the ability. _Frell!_ Yeah, he _could_. This guy could have seriously screwed the pooch if Scorpius ever got his hands on his talents in any meaningful way. This man sitting before him was almost as dangerous to his attempts to keep wormholes safe as was Unencrypted Johnny tucked away on Earth. He felt his hand twitch on the butt of his pistol.

_Frell!_

"Was it?" Intensely interested in the answer.

"Never found out. His frelling Chair didn't work so well on me. It did manage to erase a rather large chunk of my past memories – including my name, and most of my personal identity." He laughed. "Not that it has apparently mattered all that much. I get by."

"You couldn't have just checked PK records?"

"Scorpius had them erased. That's what happens when you become a non-person."

Crichton nodded. He understood _that _too.

"He employs, although not so much lately, a much more profitable outcome of his talents." Chak'sa said. "He is a Decrypter."

_No frelling dren_, Crichton thought, trying to dampen the chill the near-miss had given him. The guy could probably still do it, if he had the calculations in front of him, but that was unlikely. He took his hand off his pistol and hooked his thumb on his gunbelt.

"Mainframes. Computer code. I talk to them and make them do things for me – like transfer accounts to me, things like that."

"You're a hacker." Crichton thought about it. With his ability, he was probably the _best_ hacker alive. Scorpius had wanted him, all right. One of the problems with wormhole calculations and their decryption was that they resembled hyper-mathematics with the subtle shades and syntax of a language and the complexities of classical music all bound together. Anyone who could instinctively see all of it almost immediately would be a huge asset and a massive threat. Crichton suddenly realized that Scorpius had probably erased this guy's personality on _purpose_ – either to attempt to replace it with something more malleable, remove a potential tool an enemy might conceivably use - or simply out of frustrated spite.

"Haxer?" He mispronounced it, probably on purpose. He saw the guy roll that over in his head, then smile. "I like that word. _Haxer._ In Neriban'di that means 'divinely beautiful'." He grinned at Chak'sa, who clicked in her throat (_the closest thing Scarrans got to a sigh_) and rolled her eyes.

"'_Hacker_' means one who illegally disrupts computer systems to cause trouble or for personal gain." Crichton told him.

"Well, that too. What language is that?"

Without thinking, Crichton answered, "English."

"English? Not a language I've ever heard before – and I know languages." The guy looked at him with a sly smile. "What planet is it from?"

Crichton gave him a slight nod.

"Earth."

"Never heard of it." He relaxed back into his chair. "You notice anything strange about me?"

Crichton looked. He looked relatively normal and Crichton told him so. So he told him to keep looking and then started talking about the chess game he and Chak'sa had just been playing. It took Crichton a few moments to notice. Unlike when he had first acquired them, Crichton was by now long-used to translator microbes. It had been slightly disconcerting in the early days, hearing English while the lips of those around him never matched the words. He had become so used to it that he no longer noticed the mismatch between what he heard and what was actually being said. It took him long moments to finally see that this guy's lips _were_ matching the words.

"You're… speaking English."

"Yes, I'm speaking English. Because that's what _you're_ speaking. Like I said – I have a frelling gift." Said with no little irony. "Nice talent, don't you think?"

"Very."

"It also comes in handy when someone lies to me." He told him with all seriousness.

"I'll take that under advisement." Crichton told him, not relenting. After a moment, the guy nodded.

"So, you mind if I use it?"

"Use what for what?"

"Haxer. As a name. I've had a bunch, but none ever suited. _Haxer_." He looked around at them. "Call me Haxer. It's as good a name as any, and I like it more than anything else I've been called."

"I can imagine," Crichton jibed on impulse, and Haxer took it good-naturedly.

"You spoke of a job, Shivi'na." Chak'sa said, trying to get back on topic.

"Yes. We are looking for a crew."

"You say you pay 'generously'?" Chak'sa asked him directly. He shook his head in the negative.

"I'll give you each a ten percent cut of whatever we take - that's a bond, as it were - based on performance. You'd get paid living expenses, you'd live on the ship – y'know – paid crew."

There was a curt barking laugh from the newly-christened Haxer.

"John Crichton's worth nearly _sixty million_ CP's, collective bounties tallied."

Crichton smiled a cold smile at that as Chak'sa looked him over more carefully.

"Actually," Shiv told him. "_He_ is worth precisely _this_ much." A blade suddenly vibrated in the middle of the chessboard. Haxer eyed it, eyed her for a long moment, then looked at Crichton.

"There's currency I can understand." He looked back down at the board, pulled the blade free, balanced it on his palm. "Okay. So, what's your scam? You really just using the name?"

Crichton did not deign to answer that part.

"I just need a crew."

"And 'John Crichton' needs one that doesn't really care if it lives or dies, yeah? Easy offer to make if we're not alive to collect it. I know your reputation."

"You know _a_ reputation. Don't believe everything you hear." Crichton eyed the guy. "It's a straightforward proposal. My ship, my orders, my agenda. You get paid regularly. You get berth, board and bed. You know the score, and you know the risks, so I think we can cut this crap. It's a simple yes or no. It's not as if _I_ came looking for you _specifically_."

Haxer eyed his Scarran companion.

"Cha?"

"I am tired of this. I am not your keeper. We have been here long enough. It is obvious that the medtechs here cannot help you – and we are running out of currency."

Haxer gazed at her for a while, and then slowly nodded. He looked at Crichton and Shiv, and then got up.

"Fine. We're in. I'll go check us out." So saying, he walked off, flipped the blade to Shiv who caught it deftly. He stopped, looked back, added: "Did I mention that I actually belong here?"

"You wait a little while and I'll join you," Crichton told him.

Haxer just chuckled, shook his head and continued on. Chak'sa stood. She was as tall as Crichton, maybe slightly taller, very feminine for a Scarran. She had a blood-red bodysuit on, covered with black-and-gold armor pieces, somewhat worn. At her waist a retractable pewter-colored tube. Crichton recognized it. It was a Scarran pole weapon – the _Dra'ak'ka_ – the 'Arm of Death", an extensible weapon. At either tip could be extruded a wire a single molecule thick – which meant it could cut through damn-near anything. He knew what it was because he'd trained himself to survive one in Abbanerex's simulation suites. In the hands of an adept, the damn things were absolutely lethal. He'd been 'killed' by one in the simulation almost fifty times before he managed the reflexes to evade it. He also knew you didn't carry one _unless_ you knew how to use one – because ignorance of the weapon could kill the user just as easily. Chak'sa's looked well-used.

"You do not care that I am Scarran?" She asked him straight out.

"Are you?" He asked, and she seemed surprised by the question.

"I am close enough to resent it," she told him, to his nod.

"Not particularly. I'm not Sebacean. I don't have the heat weakness."

"Chak'sa does not have that ability, Crichton." Shiv told him. "She is… unusual for a Scarran." Chak'sa nodded. "She can use more traditional weapons, however."

"Like your Dra'ak'ka?"

Chak'sa nodded, strangely pleased that he recognized it. "It was earned honestly."

"Where?"

"'Lost Fortune'." It was said plainly, but Crichton whistled in awe. "Lost Fortune" was a Peacekeeper Arena – where they often tossed prisoners to fight to the death. It was the most famous – or infamous – of all the PK arenas. Drop a hundred prisoners in on a Monday, and if exceedingly tough, well-trained or indescribably lucky, perhaps _two_ from that hundred would be alive by Wednesday.

"How long were you there?" Crichton asked her, reassessing.

"Three cycles." Crichton shook his head in disbelief. She pointed to the tattoos on her right eye. "Each slash-burn represents one cycle. My 'mark of distinction'." She said the last with another faint air of derision.

"_Wow_."

"Chak'sa had a record number of victories that has yet to matched, Crichton," Shiv informed him. "Over one hundred."

"Remind me not to piss you off." Crichton said with a smile, one Chak'sa returned.

"If I can tolerate _him_," Chak'sa nodded in the direction Haxer had departed. "You are perfectly safe. Were I a 'pure' Scarran, he would have been dead long ago." She seemed amused by the idea. "We have been pirate brethren for several cycles. I guess you could say that piracy is the domain of the so-called freak."

"No one out-freaks me." Crichton told her. "Why were the two of you here?"

"_His_ never-ending quest for repair. So far, it has been rather futile."

"And you just keep him out of trouble, is that it?"

She shrugged.

"Someone must," and left it at that, belying her earlier statement of not being his 'keeper'. There was more to it than that, he wagered, but he wasn't about to insinuate anything.

"We'll wait for 'Haxer' at the entrance." Two nods followed that and he led the way out. Places like this made him uneasy. He'd thought himself a candidate for one of these places far too readily at times. He wondered what he was getting himself into – now with a crew of a Blade Maiden, a half-crazy computer hacker and an exiled Ruling Caste Scarran that had been a gladiator. There were only ever two options. It work well or it would fail spectacularly. He couldn't care less which way it tumbled.

They waited at the entrance for about half-an-arn, and Haxer appeared in an old-style Peacekeeper uniform, grey, carrying two large duffels, one he dropped at Chak'sa's feet.

"Thanks for your help." He grunted sourly. "I grabbed all of your possessions I could find."

"Good." Chak'sa told him, lifting the bag easily. "We are ready." She told Shiv.

"Come on then." Crichton told them, leading the way. When they arrived at the _Vengeance_, Haxer whistled in awe.

"_That_ wouldn't fit in a Leviathan."

"I don't have a Leviathan." He told Hax completely truthfully. Haxer eyed him, then said,

"_Nice_. It would appear you _do_ know what you're doing."

Crichton just fixed him with a crooked grin and went onboard.

"You'd better hope I do."

* * *

**THE NEW MEMBERS OF CRICHTON'S CREW SETTLED IN WELL ENOUGH.**

Both had been assigned cabins and Shiv had been offered the next biggest cabin off Crichton's own.

"Why does she get the other big one?" Haxer had asked.

"Because she's Second." Crichton told him, surprising Shiv with that announcement. It was the first she'd heard of it. She was, she thought, rather pleased with that.

Odd. She never sought position.

Chak'sa, far more practical than her companion, did not complain, merely stowed her belongings and asked what her duties were. When asked what other skills she had, she informed him that she was adept at mech work, had a skill with machines and weapons and could be useful in maintaining the ship. He assigned her first to diagnostics – to give the _Vengeance_ a thorough going-over. He christened her the _Vengeance's_ Chief Engineer, and she had been pleased with the title, and immediately went to work. Haxer offered to reprogram the ship's computer, but Crichton was hesitant.

"I admit that I am a bit… manic, Crichton." He said, understanding Crichton's trepidation. "But I never frell with where I live. I can make the AI on this thing dance and sing. It's what I'm best at. Frell – it's the _only_ thing I'm good at."

Crichton eyed him for a short while, then nodded.

"All right. I'd like a complete work-up on the main onboards, as well as a thorough run-through of the main AI. You're in charge of the computers." That seemed to satisfy Haxer and he smiled, straightened. "I want them as efficient as possible," Crichton added.

"Not a problem. Are you looking for something in particular?"

"Strangely enough, I think you'll know if you see it." Crichton told him cryptically. "Just bring me anything and everything that doesn't look like it should belong, and we'll keep it to ourselves for the time being. This ship belongs to _me_, and I want its brain to know _that_ implicitly."

A nod, and he set off to work. In the cockpit after they had taken off, Shiv had told him:

"I know they are unusual. They were once high among Reihna's crew, and adept pirates."

"I'm sure they were. But, trust is _earned_, Shiv. We'll see."

"That is fair. I tell you this – if either betrays you, I will kill them instantly."

He nodded, not doubting it.

"And if you betray me?" He asked. Shiv was not bothered by the question.

"I will not." She replied with perfect conviction. He nodded.

"Our next destination?" She asked him, settling in. Crichton thought about it, and then considered it some more. Something had been nagging at the back of his head, something about Furlow…

"Set a course for Dambada." He told her, deciding. He'd been there before, but now he thought it warranted another look.

A _closer _look.

* * *

**NEXT TIME ON**

**FARSCAPE - FREEBOOTER:**

**LOOSE ENDS - EXIT, STAGE RIGHT**


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